The French philosopher Michel Foucault is the most cited author in the social sciences and humanities. This book discusses one of his central notions that attracted enormous interest inside and outside academia: governmentality. It reconstructs its emergence in Foucault's analytics of power and shows its trajectory in his work.

Thomas Lemke is Heisenberg Professor of Sociology with a focus on biotechnologies, nature, and society at Goethe University-Frankfurt/Main in Germany. His research interests include social and political theory, biopolitics, and social studies of genetic and reproductive technologies. His recent publications include Der medizinische Blick in die Zukunft: Gesellschaftliche Implikationen prädiktiver Gentests (co-authored with Regine Kollek) (Campus 2008); Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges (co-edited with Ulrich Bröckling and Susanne Krasmann) (Routledge 2010); biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction (New York University Press 2011). You can email him at lemke@em.uni-frankfurt.de.

Introduction The Subject and Power, Thomas Lemke; Chapter 1 An Analytics of Government, Thomas Lemke; Chapter 2 A Genealogy of the Modern State, Thomas Lemke; Chapter 3 Liberalism,Critique and Experience, Thomas Lemke; Chapter 5 From Foucault's Hypothesis to Studies of Governmentality, Thomas Lemke;